3X

22-24W

2X

closet

1X

Today was the day that I had to knuckle down and sort through my closet to weed out all of the items that are by now just too big and baggy to wear at any occasion. Two HUGE bags of clothing later, my closet is much more grab-and-go friendly in the 14-16W and 18-20W range, depending on the brand.

I'm teetering on the edge of the next lower size, but it's probably going to be another month or two before those items can officially be added. It is very surreal to be wearing shirts again that haven't seen the light of day for the past 2-3 YEARS. It is also an odd, sentimental feeling to watch current favorites become too large, baggy, or worn out to really wear out in public anymore. Ah, the memories...

Unfortunately, in the midst of all this happiness I seem to have acquired a severe reaction to any sort of GRAIN, which manifests as a feeling like a chemical burn inside my entire upper abdomen and chest. Not cool. I discovered this only AFTER the doctor had taken five vials of blood from me to test for other things. Well, now we get to add another test to the list. This problem started suddenly 3 days before the end of May and has stayed with me ever since.

I did finish training to become a Personal Care Attendant for the patient I live with, earning a 91% score on the 15 page test. Not too bad :) Now he has to finish applying for Medicaid to tie the whole thing together.

Fitness expert Covert Bailey once said something profound that has always stuck with me. Among the many factors that inhibit fitness and/or weight loss is:
1) Being older
2) Being sickly
3) Being tired or just worn out
4) Living under HEAVY DUTY STRESS

Bell number four has been ringing off the hook for me this month, as the house is in foreclosure and my partner and I are always either on the phone, filling out and faxing paperwork, or going to face-to-face appointments with the powers that be to try and buy us the time we need to find a new place. In the midst of all that, I've been trying to finish my training for a job as a Personal Care Attendant, but because of all the other racket going on and taking precedence I've had to cancel and reschedule the classes almost as soon as they come up, which is nerve-wracking as it certainly affects people's perceptions of my reliability even though it's unavoidable.

As if that weren't enough, I've developed a strange burning, swelling sensation in the upper left abdomen (in the area of the pancreas and spleen) which has been coming back every day for the last 25 days. My doctor is having a fit because I'm still not insured (because I'm not employed yet) and the symptoms are calling for some heavy duty testing that would break anyone's bank...and certainly finish us off and then some. Five vials of blood were taken (as the least expensive option at $277) but I'll have to wait until next week to see if they reveal anything.

Needless to say, the weight loss journey has been incidental to everything else going on at the moment :P

Weight hasn't been doing much, in fact 2 pounds zipped back on for no reason except to be stubborn this Sunday, which are slowly coming off again.

No matter, as today I got a free scoop of ice cream, whipped cream, and melted chocolate for my 35th birthday, which I enjoyed for what it was: a welcome reward for continuing the fight to stay alive as opposed to the alternative :)

Oddly, I was completely relaxed while the mound of rich vanilla ice cream was placed in front of me. My dieting days would have put me on a tightwire of stress, fear, and uncertainty in identical circumstances, since I would immediately be thinking ahead to all the time AFTER the dessert when I would be fighting the urge to keep "the moment" going by eating more desserts and sugary stuff long after the fact.

While the rest of my day's fruit quota was used up by the gooey dessert, I don't particularly care to have any more than what I had, which is an experience I have only dreamed of up until now. Being able to look at sugary desserts head-on and think "Meh, I can either take it or leave it" is a glorious realization in my eating training.

I've built up enough strength to be confident in my preferences and forgiving in my allowances while still having the presence of mind to keep it all in balance. Yay!

Well, while weight loss is progressing at a slower, but still steady rate, I am noticing to my chagrin that my lower belly, which has always been large and certainly was massive at my heaviest weight, has begun to sag a bit as it shrinks...which is filling me with visions of ending up with a lifeless bag of stretched-out skin drooping haplessly from my abdomen at the end of my journey.

I had actually HAD liposuction on my lower belly some years ago, as for some physiological reason that part of my body insisted on ballooning out even at my lowest weight of 127, which gave me a distinct "pregnant" appearance. I'm thinking now that I should have gone in for the tummy tuck, as my abdominal muscles were still loose and my gut still protruded even AFTER the liposuction.

Even if I don't end up with a "bag" below my belly button, the skin certainly will be a lot looser and flimsier in that area. Nuts.

On some level I'm still fighting the urge to tinker with my food portions. That goes to show you how insidious the dieting mentality is. I can sense that I'm still obsessive about "rules" now and then, and a corner of me still gets panicky if I think that I am on the brink of "breaking" any of those rules, which just makes life more difficult all 'round for the rest of the day which is JUST what I didn't want by trying to just learn how to eat. *sigh* The only way to sort that out is to break one of these arbitrary rules deliberately and then wait in vain for Armageddon to arrive...which I know it won't. So there. Ha.

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